


Dream a Little Dream for Me

by paradiamond



Category: Snowpiercer (2013)
Genre: AU special abilities, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-11-05
Packaged: 2018-02-11 19:24:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 16,351
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2080218
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradiamond/pseuds/paradiamond
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grey dreams impossible things. He dreams about the front section, about the old world. Grey dreams up things that haven't happened yet, but mostly he dreams about her. </p><p>Meanwhile, locked away in her box, Yona has been dreaming about him too.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Grey

The sky is open in a way Grey could not have imagined. It has no end, just like they said. He gapes up at it, mouth open. He’s never had a real use for the word _forever_ before. Everything has limits. Everything ends. 

But the sky is forever. It’s the first thing he notices. It’s also horribly cold, that’s the second thing he notices, and zips his jacket up immediately. The sun reflecting off the whiteness of the snow is so bright he has to squint to see anything. Everything he can see is white except for the slashes of dark rock that scatter the landscape. Even the sky seems whiter than it probably should be. 

Of course, Grey has never actually seen the sky before now, so he can’t be sure. Gilliam says that it’s supposed to be blue. The white puffs hanging in it are clouds. They bring the rain and snow, which are both water falling from the sky. Grey stares up at them, considering his next move. Directionless, he follows the familiar pull of...something. It. He follows it, the snow getting in his way, caught under his feet. 

He walks and walk until he starts to fear that he’ll never find anything. Fear is largely unfamiliar to him. On the train he isn’t afraid of anything. He keeps walking to keep himself from stopping. There doesn’t seem to be anything, but then he sees a black openness. 

_Cave,_ he thinks, remembering his lessons. Caves are big holes in mountains and hills that sometimes have animals in them. Grey has never seen an animal before, except in books and in his dreams. 

Inspired, he makes his way towards the cave, trying to be quiet. The snow crunches and seems to breathe under his feet, too loud. In the train, he could move without any sound at all, but out here, it’s different. He realizes that he’s going to have to relearn everything and the prospect chills him to the bone worse than the cold does. 

He sneaks up on the cave, inching towards it from the side and making sure to check his back and the perimeter every few seconds. There’s nothing, and for a second he can’t breathe. Grey has never been alone like this, he’s never seen this much space. Where is Gilliam? Where is anyone? The ground is so still under his feet and he has a moment of desperate longing for the comfort of the train, swaying on the tracks. 

There’s something wrong with his body, he realizes with a jolt. He’s shaking now, and curls his fist so tightly he feels his blunt fingernails break skin. He drops to the ground, wrapping his arms around his knees. It occurs to him that he’ll die soon. No one can survive outside of the train for long. He realizes that he doesn’t even know how he left the train. _Maybe I’m dead already._ Shuddering, he lets out a breath and takes one back in, trying to regain control. 

A noise startles him, and he’s on his feet immediately, arms up and ready to fight. Panicked as he is it takes him a moment to realize that he’s looking at another person. The girl is watching him from the mouth of the cave, wide eyed and silent. She has light skin and dark hair, the contrast striking. She’s wearing a fur coat that’s too big for her, holding the neck closed with one hand and holding a rock in the other. 

Breathing hard, Grey slowly lowers his fists. Taking the measure of her at a glance, Grey can tell that she’s no threat to him. Most people aren’t. The girl looks him up and down, her eyes piercing, and Grey sees that she knows this too. Even so, she doesn’t seem scared. If anything, she looks openly curious, still staring at him with unblinking eyes. Though he’s more covered up than he has probably even been, Grey feels naked under her gaze. He wants to ask her who she is, to point to the **Who** tattooed on his left arm, but his words are covered up by necessity. 

After a loaded moment, she lowers the rock. “Grey,” she says, tilting her head. He gets a wave of dizziness and the disorienting feeling that he’s going to fall straight into her eyes. She takes a step closer to him. “Don’t you remember me?” 

Grey sits up with a jolt, like he’d been physically hit. Gasping, he rolls into a crouch, taking comfort in the fighting position and glancing around frantically. The familiar sights of the back of the last car greet him. Metal ceiling, floors, and walls. No terrifying wide open sky or killer snow. No _her_. 

He presses the palms of his hands into his eyes, collecting himself. Had he been asleep long? It felt like he’d wandered in the snow for ages, but there’s barely any movement in the car, Grey can tell. He lets out the breath he’d been holding and runs a hand over his face. It’s shaking. 

“Grey?” 

_Gilliam_

He turns and sees Gilliam sitting up, watching him with obvious concern. Grey lets his shoulders drop and points to his head. Gilliam sits up more fully, his eyes sharp. “Another dream?” 

Grey nods, moving to sit closer to him, still partly lost in the memory. 

Gilliam sets a comforting hand on his shoulder and Grey forces himself to relax, at least physically. He’s good at controlling his body, but his mind is more complicated, it always has been. Gilliam sighs, stroking Grey’s hair. “There now. It’ll get easier.” 

Grey snorts, shooting Gilliam a skeptical look. Gilliam smiles. “More manageable then. It’s been much better these past few years.” 

That Grey can accept. He no longer wakes up so confused he doesn’t know who or where he is, he can hang onto himself in the dreams enough that he can move between sleeping and waking effectively. Even if he still can’t tell when he’s dreaming, he knows when he’s awake. When he was a child it was worse, he can surely agree with that. 

Grey touches one finger to his wrist, his sign for time leftover from the old world when people wore it on their arms, and Gilliam nods. “Still late. A few more hours until count.” 

Nodding, Grey stands and stretches, taking comfort in the physical world. Gilliam watches him, another smile playing on his face. “Self consciousness really is a foreign concept to you, isn’t it?” 

Grey just shrugs. He points to himself then in the direction of the rest of the train, asking if he can go. Gilliam nods, taking out a book. He knows by now that Grey likes to be alone after his dreams. A warm feeling spreads through Grey’s chest at the easy acceptance, the understanding, and he bends at the waist to kiss Gilliam’s cheek, the best way he knows to show his affection. Gilliam accepts it with a nod, understanding perfectly his intention, though so often the others do not. 

Grey leaves the curtained off area feeling significantly more grounded. Across from him and sitting on her bunk, Emily spots him and gives a little wave. She’s not a friend, but she isn’t an enemy either. Sometimes she helps Gilliam, which makes her acceptable to Grey. Grey nods to her, feeling more like himself. Correct and in control. This is reality. He has never been outside of these train cars. The things he dreams are just in his head. Dream girl is just in his head. 

“Grey!” 

He turns and sees Edgar jogging up to him, always in motion. Grey smiles reflexively as someone swats at Edgar when he passes, growling at him to shut up, and he yells back. The train is never quiet, but it’s always louder when Edgar is around. 

Edgar catches up to him him and matches his pace, still talking. He always seems so determined to make up for Grey’s silence. “I wanted to catch you before the morning count, we need to talk about the plan. I found a way to get some kronole.” He digs into his pocket and pull out a cube. 

Grey nods, only half listening but then the smell wafts over to him, strong from even that far away. It hits him like a physical force. Grey looks away sharply, feeling a sudden echo of desire so harrowing he almost doubles over. It’s gone as quickly as it came, leaving him breathless. Edgar hardly seems to notice, continuing to babble on about the plan, but Grey can barely stand let alone listen. 

He regains control. It’s easier when Edgar puts the cube back in his pocket. Grey makes himself breath steadily, in then out. His heart pounds, but not from the effects of the drug. He has never had kronole. There’s no reason for it to affect him this much. 

Edgar is still illustrating the newest version of the plan. Grey lets him talk, nodding occasionally. Edgar and his chatter is a comforting familiarity Grey wants to cling to. He finds himself drifting though, thinking back to her. His dream girl. For some reason, the feeling the drugs gave him had reminded him of her. The dull ache. He shakes his head to clear it, but it doesn’t work.

She had been haunting Grey for as long as he could remember. It took him a long time to realize that not everyone dreams the way he does, exiting reality completely and waking up little bit less, like a part of him stays behind. Grey dreamed of made up places extending far beyond the twenty train cars that were his entire world only to realize that they weren’t fantasy.

Gilliam noticed it first. As a child he taught Grey and Edgar and some of the other young ones how to read and write by tracing in the dust. Paper had to be conserved for more important and permanent use. Grey did his lessons dutifully but he also drew his dreams, images from places long dead. Faces of people that no longer exist. Animals. Trees. Fire.

He dreamed of running with it, carrying the fire. He dreamed of the front. He dreamed of a woman in a warm place, and of his girl in a cold one. 

Gilliam had seen and took Grey aside, asking him to try to explain himself. Grey did his best, because Gilliam had saved him when he was a baby and taken care of him ever since, so he focused on drawing and writing with his new words to try to show Gilliam what lives in his head. He drew the tall buildings, wrote that he sometimes lives years in his dreams before he wakes up, and tried and tried to capture the image of the girl. 

Gilliam’s frown deepened with every new thing Grey showed him. Grey hadn’t even known that he was different from the others, apart from the obvious. He traced his suspicion into the dust, pointing to his pictures and then to his mouth. _Trade?_

Frowning, Gilliam shook his head. “No Grey, you can trade one...ability for another. The reason you can’t talk is your mother was pregnant with you during the starving time. It’s not anything else.” Grey frowned, but he never doubted Gilliam’s word. Gilliam didn’t try to tell him that the dreams meant nothing, there was just too much evidence to suggest otherwise. 

“You have many gifts Grey,” Gilliam had said, leaning back against the very back of the train. He smiled, but there was a lack of conviction there that shook Grey to the core. “Perhaps this is just another of them.” 

Gilliam kept him closer than ever after that, and they protected each other. 

“What do you think Grey?” 

Grey blinks and refocuses on Edgar, who is looking up at him expectantly. They had walked almost the entire length of the tail section and Grey has long stopped listening. He makes a noncommittal head gesture, because people tend to read whatever suits them best in Grey when they want something. It’s apparently the right move for something because Edgar grins and punches him on the arm. 

“Good man!” He runs off, probably to go confer with Curtis in the limited amount of time they have before count, and Grey just stares after him, amused. He resolves to put the odd moment with the kronole behind him and refocuses himself in the present. 

People are moving around with purpose now, in preparation for the morning count. He goes back to escort Gilliam to the front, or their version of the front. Not because Gilliam really needs escorting, but it helps to remind people of Grey’s position as Gilliam’s man. Though it had mostly cleared up in the last few months, there had been some unsettling rumors about Gilliam and his validity as leader after the McGregor revolt failed. Curtis has the popular support now, and he defers to Gilliam which has helped. Still, Grey had to kill a man last year to defend Gilliam’s position, though it earned him yet another scar, and he would do so again. Seeing them next to each other every day reminds people of that. 

Some people shoot him little glances as he moves past them, mostly looking away immediately, though some stare for a bit longer. He hears one or two people mutter something that he thinks might have been directed towards him, but he ignores them. Another, hauntingly familiar voice floats to him from behind and he whirls, thinking she’s there with him. But there’s nothing. 

The first time he dreamed of her, Grey still had no idea that his dreams were special. He would wander through forests and buildings and even other trains in ignorance of the uniqueness of the experience. Everything was so vast, and so different, except for her. She was a constant. 

He saw her for the first time standing on what he now knows is called a beach. Gilliam told him so when he drew it. She had her hair pulled up and away from her face, and she had no shoes. She was standing in the water. Grey had watched her from far away, still deeply suspicious of new things. 

She kept her gaze pointed towards the ocean and sky, never once looking his way. It was that way for a long time, with the girl not noticing him anymore than she noticed anything else, until suddenly she changed. 

The moment passes, she’s not there. He shakes her off and continues to the back to do his duty.

Gilliam is waiting for him, flipping idly through the pages of a book Grey has read half a hundred times. He smiles at him when he enters the small space, looking at the pictures that Grey had drawn in the pages. Pictures of the rest of the train as Grey had seen it. “I had a very productive conversation with Curtis today.” He says in a low voice. Grey nods, thinking of Edgar’s boundless excitement and the restlessness of air in the past few months. 

He sets the book down and lets Grey guide him away. “We have much to prepare. The time is near. You will finally get your chance to see it for real.” Grey smiles too, thinking of the front and how they will run it when it’s their turn. He had seen it in his dreams, all the different rooms, and Gilliam will know just what to do with all of them.

His good mood soon evaporates into the familiar feeling of stony resolve and cold hatred. Count is a disaster. They take the children, they smash Andrew’s arm off with a hammer. Grey breathes steadily, his heart pounding and the blood rushing in his ears, and does not look away. He see Edgar shaking and Curtis holding perfectly still a few rows ahead of him. Next to him, Gilliam reaches across his body to squeeze Grey’s arm, right above the word **Die**.

Grey understands. The time for dreaming is coming to an end, the time for action is approaching. 

_Soon._


	2. Yona

Her world is darkness. There’s nothing in it, no sounds, no space, no color. Everything is blackness, except in her mind. 

Yona dreams up her own reality, vast and wild, all while locked away in a box like some forgotten secret. It’s better than the darkness, and it’s better than what she had before. Better than kronole even. She lost her freedom and gained an entire world. 

Time loses all meaning. Instead Yona keeps track of places, people, _him_. Her dream boy with his scars and tattoos and alternatively angry and funny expressions. They live together inside their own heads, navigating strange places and even stranger creatures. She tells him her name, and he writes his for her, unable to speak. Yona’s known him for years and years, but he always seems surprised to see her. He can’t seem to understand that he’s dreaming the way she can, not even right now. 

Yona watches him from the balcony of a pretty brick building with multiple floors and open windows, humming absently to herself while she pets the scaly animal dozing on the railing. Grey is sitting at a small table with a woman with long black hair, not noticing the incorrectness of the scene this time, though sometimes he remembers that he’s not where he’s supposed to be. 

She assumes the woman is his mother. They look the same, which is why Yona won’t come down. She never got to know her mother, but she likes to watch him with his. Grey smiles a lot when he sees her, and Yona mirrors him reflexively, sharing in his happiness. 

The creature jumps down from the railing, _a dragon,_ Yona thinks. A creature from the old world. She saw it in a book when she was still living in second class. It stretches its wings and makes a high pitched noise, attracting the attention of the pair at the table. Yona meets Grey’s eyes and sees him recognize her and then automatically deny it, confusion clouding his expression. The woman calls her down, still smiling. 

Yona makes her way down the stairs, watching Grey watch her. He does nothing as she approaches and sits at the table but she can practically hear the gears in his head turning. The table setting is starting to blur in and out of existence, and Yona focuses to keep the illusion intact for a few moments longer. If Grey notices her efforts, he gives no sign.

His mother says something that Yona misses, distracted as she is, and Grey looks back at her, mouth set in a hard line. _I’m sorry,_ Yona thinks. _I didn’t want you to know. I meant for you to stay innocent this time._

He has his hand resting on the table and Yona reaches out to take it, trying to offer him comfort. The dreams aren’t usually this bad. Most of the time they’re fun. But he squeezes her hand so hard she worries for her bones, and keeps looking into his mother’s eyes. Growing desperate, she looks away, off towards the trees and sees him. The blond man. 

Overwhelmed, Yona closes hers and wishes for them all to be gone. “Grey, wake up,” she says, pushing his hand away. When she opens them, they are. She’s alone. Even the dragon is gone from the balcony. She stares at the chair his mother had been sitting in, flickering in and out again and puts her head down on her arms. 

For the first time in a long time, Yona cries for her father. 

She tries to avoid Grey in her dreams after that, drifting through the different worlds and leaving him alone. She decides that she doesn’t like to feel such serious things. She likes being alone, so she dreams up landscapes, mixing a little fantasy in with her realities. Sometimes she can’t help what she dreams though, and gets pulled into a place not of her making, usually back to him. 

Yona keeps out of his sight, watching from the shadows when he mind demands that she see something. She’s not sure if Grey notices. More often than not she dreams about snow and ice, the things her father used to tell her about, and she drags him there with her to freeze. 

This time she floats on her back in an icy lake, staring up at the sky. Through the train windows, the sky was like a blanket that surrounded them, but here it’s not like anything. There’s no way to describe the sky except that it’s big and Yona wants to live in it. 

Closing her eyes, she imagines herself floating up, going higher until she reaches the sky. She breathes deeply and her perceptions take on a distinctly different quality, becoming more solid, more forceful. _Is this what the sky feels like?_ She lets her eyes flutter open and sees the metal ceiling. 

She blinks, her eyelids heavy. The water threatens to pull her under again, but a hand comes down and shakes her. 

“Wake up.” 

Her father. Yona opens her eyes again, looking up at him. For a moment she’s painfully confused, she never dreams about her father, and then she realizes that her muscles hurt and her throat is dry and she’s _awake._

She sits up too quickly, her body not quite catching up with her brain and has to lean forward until her head hits the prison cell in front of her. It’s hard to make herself do anything. Too tired to really move, she lets her father talk and gets reacquainted with having a real body. 

It _hurts._ She huffs and presses her head more firmly to the metal, grounding herself in the sensation. Feeling things again. It’s something she’ll have to get used to. People are moving around in the room. _A lot of them_ , she realizes belatedly, wondering why they all came to see their release. Then she wonders why they’re being released in the first place. 

Her father prods her shoulder, urging her to get up. She moves, smiling at him briefly before she glances around at the room and sees some of the people in it. Tail sectioners, all of them. Her eyebrows fly up, and she wonders if maybe she would have been better off staying in the box. 

“Come on,” a man with a beard and a strange accent says, gesturing at her father. “Let’s get that gate open.” 

Yona blinks, realizing for the first time the specifics of their situation. Her father tugs her by the arm up to the front of the car and she goes, still having problems with her body. People stare at her as she goes but she avoids their eyes, keeping her head down and her hood up. The feeling of being watched only intensifies. She crouches on the ground next to her father and focuses on watching him work. 

It’s boring, and the people are still staring. Or one person is. It’s like an itch at Yona’s back that she can’t get to. Most of the people are getting ready for a fight, shifting around nervously or fingering their weapons. She glances over at the gate. 

“No one there.” The leader glances down at her, frowning. Amused, Yona holds out her hand. “Kronole?” 

He gives it to her and she puts it to her face immediately, relief spreading through her limbs as she holds it out for her father. But the itching sensation only gets worse. Irritated, she whips her head around, ready to yell, and looks directly into Grey’s face. 

She blinks, shock running through her, cutting through the kronole. He looks the same as he does in the dreams, all wild hair and tattooed skin, except that he looks painfully aware of their reality. Tan skin, bright eyes, scars. Frozen, Yona can only sit there, caught in his gaze. _Or maybe he’s caught in mine,_ she thinks, watching him gape openly at her. His face is so expressive it’s like she can sees all his thoughts written there as easily as the words on his body. Did he think she wasn’t real? 

The door opens, startling her and she looks over to see that she was right, no one. People push past her, eager to get into the new space and she lets them, scooting around the corner with her father to sit and scratch the cubes. Grey seems to decide to ignore her for the moment, passing by without a glance down at her, drawn to the windows. The first time he’s seen the sun for real, she realizes. 

He turns around to look at her and finds her already looking back at him. He looks so lost, glancing away and then back again. She smiles at him. “Ok, dream boy?” she calls out in english, letting her voice carry across the space. Grey flinches, his eyes going wide, and spins back around to push the old man farther down the car. 

Her father raises an eyebrow at her but she just shrugs. “I dreamed about him when we were in prison.” 

He just rolls his eyes and goes back to his scratching. 

Yona leans against the metal wall and lets her eyes drift shut, letting the kronole sensation warm her up. It’s good, not quite as good as dreaming, but still better than reality. She wonders if she will ever dream properly again. Maybe she has to do it inside a box for it to work right. 

Someone is calling her father from the other side of the car, and he stands up with an irritated expression. He pats her on the head. “Stay. It’s safer at this end,” he says before walking away to open the next gate. She just hums and keeps drifting, trusting the rest of the people to leave her alone because they need her father. 

But someone does approach her, she feels it before he nudges her foot with his, and she smiles, peeking through her eyelashes. “Grey.” 

He shifts his weight from foot to foot, like he might run away at any moment. _Cute,_ Yona thinks, and pats the floor beside her. “Do you want to sit?” 

Grey narrows his eyes, looking like he absolutely does not want to sit, but he does it anyway, keeping his eyes on her as he slowly lowers himself to the ground. Yona tilts her head, regarding him with interest. His features are slightly blurry, one of the early effects of the kronole, but she knows his image better than she knows her own. “I’m sorry.” He gives her a curious look. “I didn’t mean to scare you.” 

Visibly offended, he straightens his spine and squares his shoulders, puffing himself up like some kind of proud animal. It just makes her smile more, her dream boy so sensitive and off balance. He tap on the floor twice with his fingers and she furrows her eyebrows, confused until he points to his own arm. She leans forward to see it, not because she couldn’t before but so she can see what he’ll do. The closer she gets, the more he stiffens. Maybe it’s the kronole smell. She wonders if her would actually snap in half if she touched him. 

The tattoo he’s pointing to says **Who**. She leans back, letting him have some breathing space again. “Yona, and you’re Grey, yes? We already know each other even if you don’t want to believe it.” He gives her a dry look and points to it again. She rolls her eyes. “Mid section passenger, but I live in that box for years.” 

Grey glances at the doorway to the prison car, frowning. His face is all scrunched up so Yona leans forward and cups his cheek with her hand, tracing the bone with her finger tips. He jolts, but doesn’t stop her, staring off into the middle distance without really seeing. She frowns, thinking that she recognizes his expression. 

“Grey,” Yona says, and waits for him to look at her. Distracted, she lets her fingers drift up to brush against his scar. She tries to think of how best to make him understand. “I’m a real person. You’re awake.” 

He sits back, effectively dislodging her hand and stares at her for several minutes. Yona just makes herself comfortable against the wall, waiting for him. Finally Grey point to another of his marks. **How**.

Yona smiles and shrugs. “Maybe we’re just special.” Grey is unimpressed, furrowing his eyebrows at her, making her smile wider. So expressive. She scratches her nose and tries to think. “Ok. Maybe the train.” 

Grey snorts, looking away. Yona reaches over and pokes him in the stomach, making him flinch. “I said _maybe_.” He stares at her with wide eyes, leaning away slightly. Yona rolls her eyes and glances over towards the gate. Still closed. 

“You are a special person,” she says with conviction. Grey just gives her a dry look, his expression flat. It makes Yona smile, and leans closer to him. This time he doesn’t lean away, watching her with dark eyes. “I’m special too though, it’s ok.” 

She holds out her hand, palm up. He glances down at it then looks back to her face, expression highly skeptical. Yona just waits, raising her chin higher in the air. Grey’s cheeks color slightly and he reaches out to take her hand, gripping it too tightly.


	3. Grey

In his dreams, Grey is always right in the middle of the action. He is the center of the universe inside his own head, even if he doesn’t realize it at the time. The real world doesn’t work like that though. 

“Don’t open it!” Yona’s panicked voice carries across the length of the car and Grey looks up, drawn to the sound, but he can barely see anything. 

He’s almost at the back of the car when the doors open to reveal an army. For a second, all he can do is stand there, frozen with his hands wrapped around the handles of Gilliam’s chair. “Grey,” Gilliam says, reaching back to grip his hand. “Go. Emily will take me to safety.” 

Grey knows that there is no safety, not if they don’t win, but he does it. He squeezes Emily’s arm hard in warning before letting her go and then he’s moving forward painfully slowly, heart pounding, towards the killing gang. He’s seen them before, knows the terrifying way they fight. He dreamed of them before the McGregor riots, dreamed that one of them took Yona’s head off with a clean sweep of an axe. Back then it was just a dream. 

It’s a standoff, the tension hanging thick in the air. Grey can see them through the rows of his own people, masked and terrifying. He takes a deep breath and resolves to use his fear. To weaponize it. Around him people are brandishing weapons, standing still but constantly in motion. He doesn’t see Yona. 

Suddenly they’re bursting forward, acting on some signal Grey doesn’t see. He throws himself into it, twisting and leaping out of the way of axes. He hears Edgar call out. “Move forward!” They must be doing something right. He dodges a swing and drops to the floor, stabbing the man in the leg before slashing upwards to sever vulnerable arteries.

Grey jumps back up- and sees her. It’s like the breath rushes of of him all at once. She’s perched on her father’s back, safe but not safe at all. Yona meets his eyes, and hers are shockingly calm. 

Another swing of an axe and he had to dodge again, losing sight of her. He kills one man, then another, their images blurring together as he sprints for a third. A high pitched sound rings out over the din of the fight, and suddenly they’re at the bridge. Grey puts his back to the wall and watches as the people cheer, knives and axes still in hand. 

Yona is staring at him from over her father’s shoulder, and Grey feels the sudden need to go to her, but then the train is shaking from impact and he’s thrown to the floor. Grey rolls to his knees, finding his balance for a brief moment before the second impact hit, narrowly avoiding falling on his own knife. 

Shocked and shaking, Grey lifts his head to see Yona’s father standing among all the fallen, holding Yona around his back. He stares at them, shocked as they risk their lives to _look out the window._ He crawls forward, thinking to pull them both down if he has to, but then they have a third impact, and someone falls on top of Grey, pinning him down. 

He struggles, unsure if the person crushing him is a friend or foe, but certain he wants to escape them. Grey gets free, rolling away from his assailant as quickly as he can, preparing to launch himself at the next gang member he sees, but then Minister Mason’s voice rings out, startling in how out of place it seems in the middle of the battle. Grey glares at her from the other side of the car, somehow he had ended up at the back agin, hand clenched over his knife. The more she talks the more Grey wants her dead. 

The lights are going out and Grey jumps up, looking for the reason. Edgar’s yelling again. “Go back, go back!” Grey spins, and suddenly they’re plunged into an all consuming darkness. 

The train reeks of fear. Grey pushes his way back and back towards Gilliam. He tells himself that Yona’s father must have taken her back and away from the battle already to protect her. He wouldn’t have done anything else. Grey does his best to run, blind as he is. She’s safe. She’s back with Gilliam and she’s safe. 

The tail section is a mess of panicked confusion. Grey pushes past people, sensitive to the fact that they might end up with a riot in the tail while the revolution dies in the front. Someone collides with him with a very specific gasp. _Emily._ Grey grabs onto to her and squeezes, trying to make her understand who he is without the benefit of a voice. She struggles but he’s stronger and he pulls her hand towards his chest, pressing it against his scar. 

She stops struggling, catching on immediately. “Grey?” she breathes, and Grey taps on her arm twice. She makes a sound of pure relief, and immediately starts pulling him by the arm. “I’m sorry. I lost Gilliam I-” 

“Chan! Bring the fire!” 

Grey whips his head in the direction of Curtis’ voice. He calls again and Grey understands. _Fire._ It echoes within him, and he remembers. Throwing Emily away from him, Grey heads for the heart of the tail. It’s slow going at first, but then he sees the light, getting closer and closer. Grey bares his teeth. _Yes._ He dreamed of this. He remembers. 

It doesn’t take long for them to turn the tide, Grey leads the charge, cutting down men with reckless determination. It sings through his veins and soon Grey is grappling with the blond man. Franco. He slams him against the wall, his arm at his throat. His knife still buried in Minister Mason’s leg. The light floods back into the train, so bright it nearly knocks them all over in shock. 

“Stop!” Mason screams out, choking on it. Grey looks up only when he has Franco on his knees, and finds the battle over. He blinks, confused at the sudden change. Under his hands, Franco bucks, and Grey kicks him hard in the center of the back. Jandro runs over to help hold him, giving him a grim smile that Grey doesn’t bother to return.

Grey takes stock of the scene, breathing hard. Many are dead on both sides. Edgar is gone. So is Emily, a burned out torch still clutched in her hand. Something twists in his chest but Grey looks away from their faces. They don’t need anything from him anymore, and resigns himself to scanning the car for Yona’s corpse instead. He hadn’t seen her in the tail section. He doesn’t see her now. 

A noise catches his attention and he turns to see Yona sitting on the floor, the other Franco dying in front of her. Jandro sees it too. “Oh shit,” he says, sounding disgusted. 

Shock runs through him and Grey feels his eyes widen, feels Franco the elder try to launch himself towards them, but Grey holds him steady. She looks terrified, but then her father is with her, wiping her face and holding her hand. Something inside him unclenches when he sees them, like a cork being pulled. Grey takes a breath and makes himself look away, spotting Gilliam walking on his own through the dead. _It must really be over then,_ Grey thinks, helping Jandro drag Franco to the pipes to be chained up. 

He glances back. Yona is still crouched on the floor, though she’s several feet away from the body now. Her father must have dragged her. The blood is still smeared all over her face. Grey thinks about going to her, but then Gilliam calls out to them to wash away the blood, and Grey goes first to set the example, grabbing the cleanest spare piece of fabric from the floor he sees. 

“Woah,” the man next to him calls out when the water hits, grinning like a fool. “Warm water. This is something else,” he says, dipping his head under the spray without bothering to get undressed. Grey just nods, trying to be as efficient as possible, though he does let his eyes drift shut for a moment of pure enjoyment. The warmth drips down into his bones. The others around them are jostling and pushing within seconds, so Grey gets out of their way, taking a moment to wash out the scrap and get it soaking. 

Still crouched next to Curtis on the floor, Gilliam gestures to Grey as he exits the shower, but Grey holds up one finger, casting a glance in Yona’s direction. _One minute._ Gilliam’s eyebrows fly up but he waves him along, finally smiling. Grey turns away before Gilliam can see him blush, though privately Grey can admit that his apparent approval means a lot. Grey had told Gilliam about Yona while they were in the protein block car. Evidently he had decided to read something into that. 

Yona doesn’t look up as he approaches, curled into herself with her arms wrapped around her legs, but her father eyes him with suspicion. Grey hesitates a few feet away for a moment, clutching the dripping rag. Awkwardness hasn’t really been a concept Grey connected to in the past, but with Namgoong Minsu’s eyes on him he finds himself understanding it more. 

After a tense few minutes, Grey simply holds the rag out to him and gestures to Yona’s face. His eyebrows fly up but he reaches out to take it just as Yona finally sees him and reaches for Grey’s free hand, pulling him down and onto the floor. Grey goes, letting himself be manhandled into position against the wall, Yona’s skinny arms wrapped around one of his in a vice grip. Her father says something to her in korean and she turns her face towards him so he can clean the blood, burying it back in Grey’s shoulder again once he finishes. She still hadn’t said anything. 

Grey meets her father’s eyes over Yona’s head, deep and serious. He holds his gaze, steady despite his pulse deciding to run rampant without his permission. Eventually he just rolls his eyes and stands up, brushing off his pants and fixing Grey with another stern look. 

“Thanks for the cloth. Watch her for me.” Then he leaves, heading for the center of the car to crouch down in front of Gilliam and Curtis, though Curtis seems dead to the world, staring over at Edgar’s body with a vacant expression. Grey feels a chill run through him and he wraps his other arm around Yona, holding them together tighter. 

The smell of kronole drifts up from her, caught in her hair and skin. Grey lets himself inhale it, cautious. He can’t let himself be affected by it, but the initial reaction he had when Edgar showed it to him seems to have passed. Relieved, Grey gathers her up tighter. 

If people look at Grey at all, it’s with a mild curiosity that quickly fades. They’re too busy dealing with their own lives. Grey meets Gilliam’s eyes and receives another nod of approval, allowing him to settle into the wall and carefully rest his cheek on Yona’s head. No reaction. He glances down at her and finds her fast asleep, using him as her personal bed and pillow. Grey snorts, genuinely amused for the first time in days, and feels a wave of affection for this girl child who thinks she can do anything she wants with Grey. 

She might be right. 

Yona sleeps for over an hour, snoring lightly and occasionally twitching. Grey finds himself wondering if she’s dreaming, and what she’s dreaming about. Is it possible for her to dream about Grey even if he’s not asleep? He frowns, still wondering how any of it works, but Yona didn’t seem to have any explanations for him. Her father comes back after a while, sitting himself down next to the pair and holding out his arms. “Gilliam asked to see you,” he mutters, eyes on his daughter. Nodding, Grey lets go of the sleeping girl, though it’s a bit of a process to get her to let go of him. 

Nam nods to him as he stands, setting Yona’s head down in his lap as a pillow. Grey gives her one last look before walking away and feels no anxiety. She’s more than safe with her own father. It occurs to Grey that he probably shouldn’t feel this way about her at all, not yet and maybe not ever. But he’s known her all his life, even if they just met. 

Gilliam is sitting in a corner, surrounded by their top surviving fighters. He seems to be giving out assignments. Grey waits patiently. His arm is buzzing, the blood returning to it after being gripped so tightly for so long, and he flexes his hand to try to relieve the pressure. The fighters all leave, and Grey sits down, looking at Gilliam expectantly. 

“Sorry to tear you away,” he says, smirking at Grey’s attempts to hide his embarrassment. Gilliam leans forward and put a hand on Grey’s knee. “Don’t be so tense. It’s a wonderful thing to like a woman. I’m happy for you. Lord knows I haven’t held a woman in years.” 

Grey shifts, unsure how to explain himself. He’s sure that Gilliam is referring to sex, but he isn’t sure if that’s part of what he has with Yona at all. He wants to tell Gilliam, and to ask him his opinion, but they’re in the middle of a revolution. Deciding to try to explain after they had finished taking the engine, Grey just shrugs and shifts closer to get his instructions. 

Some hours later, after they had disposed of the dead and begun the rebuilding and healing efforts, Grey is taking his turn as one of the guards for the prisoners. Franco sits morosely, still chained to the metal grate, glowering around at everything. But most of the time, he watches Yona. Grey knows because he’s watching her too. 

As soon as Yona and her father disappeared from the car, heading back towards the tail, Franco had disengaged entirely. Grey glares down at him, twirling his knife in his fingers, and Franco notices. He smiles wickedly for a moment but doesn’t say anything, settling down onto the floor. He looks too comfortable for Grey’s taste. Too relaxed.

“Ready to switch?” a voice asks him, close to his ear. Grey jumps, realizing that he had been staring at Franco for some time. Franco hadn’t blinked. Shaken, he nods and lets the man take his place, casting Franco one last glare. 

He looks for Gilliam but finds that he’s gone. Thinking to find him, and possibly Yona as well, Grey heads for the door to the rest of the train. He feels Franco’s eyes on him the entire way. As he passes by, he notices people standing pressed to the windows, hands on the glass. For a moment, Grey isn’t sure what they’re all looking at, but then he realizes. The sun is starting to go down, casting beautiful colors in the sky. 

He pauses briefly to look at it. Of course he had seen sunsets in his dreams before, but it’s different somehow, seeing one in reality. A movement in the corner of his eye catches his attention and Grey turns his head to see Yona standing in the doorway, watching him instead of the sky. He ducks his head, feeling irrationally like he’d been caught doing something he shouldn’t but she just smiles and starts walking towards him. 

Franco’s gaze is still on them, more intense now that Yona has entered the room so Grey darts forward and takes her hand, leading her away from the killing car. She frowns but doesn’t put up any resistance. “Don’t you want to look at the…?” Grey just shakes his head, eager to get her away from the man that wants her dead.


	4. Yona

The tail section is a mess, though even she knows better than to say so out loud. It’s even worse than the prison car. When they passed through it, she had turned to him and grinned. “Do you want to see my house?” she asked, ignoring his skeptical looks as she pulled open her cell door. She flourished her hands, gesturing to the narrow space. 

Grey had just stared at her, making the sort of face people had been making at Yona for her entire life. Some of the few other people in the car snickered and Grey glared at them, shutting them up instantly. She just shrugged it off, sliding the door closed again and following him through to the tail proper. For some reason, she had never seen much of it in her dreams even though Grey had lived here for his entire life. 

Now that she’s inside, she can see why they tried so hard to get out. Grey looks at her like he knows what she’s thinking and Yona clears her throat, uncharacteristically embarrassed. “How many cars?” she asks, looking up to the ceiling. 

Grey hold out all ten of his fingers and then curls them in before showing them again. Twenty. She raises her eyebrows. “Wow.” Grey sends her a curious look so she clarifies, still looking around at the room. “There’s only sixty cars total. You guys are a third of the whole train.” 

Grey just shrugs, casting a look around the room. It’s much more full than the rest of the train. They had created levels and little rooms, making the space seem bigger than some of the other cars, even though they all have the same dimensions. Yona takes it all in, walking backwards sometimes so she can look at it all, trusting Grey not to let her crash into anything. 

Abruptly, he pulls her off into a small room-like area, though the ceiling is lined with hammocks. Yona can see that there are people sleeping in them. Grey steps closer to her, reaching out to take her hand. For a second, she thinks he means to kiss her, and her eyebrows fly up, surprised and a bit confused. Grey glances up at her face and does a double take, reddening slightly. She must have been obvious in her thinking then. 

He looks so panicked she can’t help but laugh, rising up on her tip toes to kiss him on the cheek. “Don’t worry about it dream boy.” 

He scoffs and glares at her, though there’s no venom in it. Looking much more comfortable, he rolls his eyes before taking her hand again, tapping her palm twice. Yona looks down at it as he traces letters on her palm, slowly so she can understand them. F R A N C O. He taps her palm again. 

Yona blinks, confused. “Franco.” Grey nods. She frowns, thinking. “The...blond man?” 

Grey nods more vigorously, his expression serious. For once, Yona doesn’t want to make him smile. She nods back. “I dreamed of him before.” 

Grey turns his arm meaningfully and Yona looks. **Die**. Then he points to her. She slaps his hand away and notices that hers are shaking. She must be afraid. “I know that idiot.” 

The blond man stalked her in her dreams sometimes, but never when Grey was there. He wouldn’t know what he was like. He never saw the things she saw. While she slept with her head on Grey’s shoulder, she dreamed that she saw both of their bodies, silent and still. They were laid out next to each other in a yellow room, as though they were being presented to her. Grey didn’t see, so he doesn’t understand. 

Grey puts both of his hands up briefly, signing surrender which is so adorable on scarred, tattooed Grey that Yona finds she’s not angry anymore. He puts them down, considering for a few seconds before reaching for her hand again. This time Yona meets him halfway, glancing down at their hands with curiosity. B E he taps once on her hand C A R E F U L L. 

Yona pulls her hand away, rubbing her fingers against her palm absently. “Only if you are,” she says, smiling when he nods completely seriously. She reaches for his hand again. “Are you going to show me the rest of the train?” 

Grey seems to give the question some real consideration before nodding, which is curious. She would have thought that it was an easy one. Yona lets him pull her along, half jogging to keep up with his much longer legs as he leads her farther into the tail. 

People seem to shy away from him, giving him plenty of space to walk. Grey never has to swerve in his path, even though tail section has more people crammed into each car than Yona had ever seen, people just make room for him. They seem almost nervous around him and it makes Yona smile to see her dream boy being treated like some dangerous thing. 

“I think they’re scared of you,” she teases, but he just casts her an amused look, the hint of a smile at the corner of his mouth. Grey leads her all the way to the far end of the train, holding out his hand to stop her from going through a curtained off area. 

Even more curious now, Yona bounces on the balls of her feet, trying to see over his shoulder and ignore the wave of dizziness that hits her. It had probably been too long since she’d eaten. Actually walking around and doing things in reality take up a lot more energy than laying in a box. She stretches, but he’s at least a foot taller than her so she can’t see anything. “What is it?” she asks, seconds away from pushing right past him. 

He leans away from the curtain far enough to point at his chest. **Gilliam**. A jagged scar cuts through the word. Yona bites her lip, considering the image. She glances back up and sees Grey is still staring at her, seeming to look for a sign that she understands what he’s telling her. She nods, trying to look enthusiastic, though her head hurts. 

Satisfied, Grey holds the curtain open for her, revealing the old man Yona had seen Grey push around in the chair. He looks up when she steps into the space and smiles. “Hello my dear, you must be Yona,” he says, though he glances at Grey when he says it. 

Yona sticks her hand out, prompting Gilliam to raise his eyebrows. “It’s very nice to see you again, Mr. Gilliam,” she answers, ignoring Grey’s frantic looks. 

Gilliam chuckles and takes her hand in his, giving it a brief shake. Yona glances down and sees the umbrella sticking out of his other sleeve, but raises her eyes when Gilliam speaks again. “Ah yes, of course you share Grey’s special talent. My apologies but I do not believe that I have met _you_.” 

She smiles, mirroring him. Next to her, Grey shifts his weight for what might be the fourth time. Yona glances over at him out of the corner of her eye and wonders if Gilliam is his father. Gilliam clears his throat. “I’m glad you came Grey. Not that I’m not pleased to meet your friend, but I was just about to send for you to accompany me to the front. We have business to attend to.” 

Grey stands up impossibly straight, looking at Gilliam with all of his formidable attention. Yona glances between them, intrigued. Father, boss, mentor? She can’t tell exactly, but Grey is holding the curtain open for them both so she leaves the space, sending Grey a curious looks as she passes. Grey looks…anxious. There’s no other word for it. _It’s a very different look for him_ , Yona thinks, stopping when Gilliam stops. 

“Miss Namgoong,” Gilliam says with surprising correctness. “May I offer you my arm?” She laughs, delighted, and can actually feel Grey relax slightly behind her as she takes Gilliam’s arm, letting him use her for support. They make their way through all twenty cars of the tail, and people make way for them like they did before, though this time is seems rather more respectful than fearful. 

Yona casts a glance behind her as they pass through one of the door and sees Grey scanning the room, probably checking for threats. She smirks but whips her head back around when he catches her looking, earning herself a jab in the kidneys. She bites her lip to keep from laughing and turns to Gilliam. “So, Mr. Gilliam. You are the leader of the tail section?” 

He smiles. “So they tell me,” he says, and holds up his umbrella handle. “Why, aren’t you impressed?” They both laugh, though Yona thinks she hears Grey gasp from behind. She rolls her eyes, thinking of his pinches expression. She doesn’t even have to look. 

It takes much longer for them to come back through the tail than it did the first time because someone stops them in every car to speak to Gilliam, reaching out to grasp his hand, telling him how they believed in the mission. Yona watches them with vague interest, though more often she watches Grey watch them. Unlike Gilliam, he has no love for the people just because they’re tail sectioners, she can tell. He looks at them the same way he looks at everything else. Assessing, calculating risk and value. She looks away before he catches her this time, considering it. 

“Yes, thank you,” Gilliam says, rubbing a child’s head. “We must be on our way now.” 

Yona tries not to look too relieved when they reach the last car in the tail section. “You are…” she searches for the right words. “A very popular man, Mr. Gilliam.” 

He glances over at her, a knowing expression on his face. “Of course. The people need someone to love.” Yona smirks back at him, but then they cross into the much brighter cars, lit for work and prisoner keeping, and she winces. Far too bright. 

The sensation doesn’t get better as they cross into other cars. The prison car and then the sleeper car, now full of the dead. Grey seems to sense something is wrong because he puts a steadying hand on her elbow, frowning down at her. 

Yona pulls away, not wanting him to think that she’s weak, and points to a particularly gruesome pile of dead ax gang members. “Did you kill some of them?” she asks, tilting her head to the side. Her hood falls down but she doesn’t reach up to fix it. 

Grey nods immediately and starts looking around the room, considering the dead men. There seem to be two types of handling for the bodies, one for enemies and one for friends. The friends are laid out flat while the enemies are piled. He smiles, pointing to an asian man dressed as a conductor, then to one of the masked fighters, and finally to a man dressed a prison guard. Yona nods, impressed. 

She scans the the piles, looking for the man that had died in front of her, but she doesn’t find him. Gilliam is conspicuously silent beside her, and Yona looks up to see him staring at them both, looking highly disturbed. She smiles over at him, showing teeth. To her surprise, he laughs despite his obvious discomfort. Yona decides that she likes him. 

“Shall we move on?” Gilliam suggests, pointing towards the open door with his umbrella. Yona looks through it and sees that the sky is fully dark now. Many people are sleeping. Someone looks in their direction and starts walking towards them immediately. Her father. He’s not sleeping. 

Yona lets go of Gilliam’s arm to go to him, wrapping her arms around his waist and squeezing. He smells like kronole, and it makes her bones ache. He ignores her, looking at Gilliam and Grey over the top of her head. She hears Gilliams voice. “A fine daughter you have there Mr. Namgoong,” he says, and she can hear the smile in his voice. 

Her father huffs. “I know.” Yona looks up at his face and sees his customary annoyance towards other people in the tightness around his eyes. She squeezes him tighter. 

“Come,” he says to her in korean. “We should sleep.” He doesn’t ask her where she had been. Yona shoots a smile over her shoulder and follows after her father. Gilliam waves to her but Grey just stares, blank faced and silent as always. 

She turns to look up to her father when he reaches over to pull her hood back up for her. “Did you see anything interesting?” he asks her, pausing to look out of the window as he digs through his pockets. 

Yona shrugs. “Mr. Gilliam is interesting, and I saw the whole tail section.” 

Her father hums, still looking out at the dark scenery. It’s not a full moon, but the whiteness of the snow and ice still reflects what little light there is, making it possible to see. “He is an interesting man.” He pulls out a cube from his pocket and hold it out for her. She grabs it immediately, grinning. “For sleeping,” he says, taking one out for himself. 

After she;’s inhaled her fill, she turns to lean against the wall, away from the window and lets the sensation wash over her. “What about you?” He glances over at her, his expression slightly vacant. “Did _you_ do anything interesting?” 

He makes a face. “I looked at the door for tomorrow.” 

“Easy?” 

“Of course. Everything is easy for me.” He turns and sits down on the floor. “Nice bed.” 

Yona laughs, dropping to sit on the floor as well and scooting over to lean against him. Her father wraps an arm around her and sighs, his breathing evening out. Yona settles into his side, letting her brain shut down and soak up the kronole lightness. All the little hurts of her body start to fade. 

As she feels herself start to drift, she also feels eyes on her. Thinking that it might be Franco, still chained to the pipes, she peeks through her eyelids, but he’s been moved somewhere. Curious, Yona searches the room until she finds the source of the staring. 

She smiles over at him before closing her eyes to sleep. _Night, Dream boy._


	5. Grey

For a moment after he wakes up Grey is confused by his surroundings until he remembers that he fell asleep somewhere other than the tail section for the first time in his entire life. He sits up, looking around the car which is little more than a transition from tail to front, empty except for the people still sleeping in small groups. Grey leans against the wall, shaking his head as he takes in all the wasted space. 

He’s the only person awake. Next to him, Gilliam is making faces in his sleep, no doubt in pain from sleeping on the floor. In their room at the back of the train, they at least have a thin mattress and some blankets to keep them warm. In truth, returning to the tail section to sleep probably would have been the most comfortable option for everyone, but few did. 

Thinking to make himself useful in some way, Grey stands, drawn to the view of the outside world immediately. The train is moving so fast that ground Grey can see directly below it is nothing more than a white blur, but the distant things are moving slowly. Grey stands there, enthralled. Despite having seen so many different landscapes and structures in his dreams, the novelty of looking out of a real window had yet to fade. Maybe that was the reason Yona and her father had risked their lives just to look during the battle. 

This landscape is completely white. Even the grey blotches that used to be buildings are white tinged. The sun is shining, much brighter and more painful to look at than it does in his dreams. He tries to look at it now, but he can’t manage it for longer than a few seconds at a time. Wincing, he looks away, deciding to stare at something else. It’s only because he’s looking at the skyline so intently that he sees her. 

Gripped by a sudden panic, Grey lurches forward, slamming his hands against the glass. _Yona._ She’s sitting on top of a mostly collapsed one story building, swinging her feet to some beat Grey can’t hear. All she’s wearing for the cold is her hooded sweater but it doesn’t matter; no amount of warm clothes can protect a person from the cold. She’ll die if he doesn’t get her inside immediately. She might be dead already. 

Grey slams his fists against the glass, trying desperately to get her attention, banging until the glass splinters. Yona doesn’t even look up, playing with something in her hands. Kronole maybe, it might be why she can’t feel the cold. He hits the glass one last time, and it shatters outward, shards spilling out onto the snow. 

Yona finally looks up, frowning. “Grey?” she calls out, shielding her eyes from the sun. He shouldn’t be able to hear her at this distance. The train isn’t moving anymore, he realizes with a jolt. They’re frozen. 

Suddenly Yona’s voice is coming from right next to him. “Grey, its ok.” He turns to looks at her-

-and wakes up, finding her perched above him, arms wrapped around her knees. She grins at him when he looks at her. “Just a dream.” 

Grey coughs and sits up, nodding. _Yes_ , he wants to tell her, he realizes that now. Yona rubs her nose, scrunching up her face for a moment. “You were making some pretty scary faces.” 

He looks to his left to see that Gilliam must have already gone, then spots him huddled with Curtis in one of the far corners. Satisfied, he points to the window he broke in his dream, then stops. He doesn’t usually care that he can’t talk, but there are times when he wants to talk to Yona very badly, just for the ease of it. He forgot how irritating it is to try to communicate with people that aren’t used to him. Grey tries to think of how to explain it to her, but she waves a hand. “I know, I saw.” 

Grey nods again, unexpectedly pleased, and leans his head against the metal wall for a moment before standing up. Yona stares up at him, expression openly curious, so Grey points to Gilliam and Curtis. She stands, starting in that direction, but Grey reaches out and hooks two fingers into her hood, pulling her back. “Ah-” She lets out a strangled half-gasp, shooting him a dark look, but Grey just shakes his head. 

“Ok.” She rolls her eyes. “I’ll stay here.” 

Grey passes Yona’s father on his way to Gilliam’s area, and receives a short nod that he returns. When he reaches Gilliam, Grey touches his arm briefly to let him know he’s there, and Gilliam reaches out to give his arm a squeeze. The touch grounds Grey in the moment, the familiar feeling of it settling in his bones. 

Curtis and Gilliam are discussing their next move, given the information they had received from Minister Mason about the water supply. Grey feels a wave of guilt, wondering if he should have known, if he should have seen that in his dreams. Gilliam would tell him not to worry about it if he was aware of Grey’s thoughts, but Grey can’t help but wonder. 

“A small contingent then,” Gilliam says, stroking his chin in thought. “It’s a fair idea. There’s no good reason to send our entire force forward at this moment. We need our people more than the front does.” 

Grey nods, considering the idea. A small contingent means that Gilliam will stay behind, and of course Grey will stay with him. If Edgar had lived, he would have been going. Curtis will have to choose a new fighter, maybe Jandro. He’ll have to take Namgoong too, and Grey wonders if he would risk his daughter by taking her with him into further danger or if he would be willing to leave her behind with Grey. Anxiety starts to build in Grey’s stomach at the thought of her leaving, but he fights it down, glancing at the others. 

Curtis nods too, though his eyes have strayed to something on the other side of the car. Grey follows his gaze, irritated that he would ignore Gilliam. At first he isn’t sure what Curtis is looking so disapproving of, but then he realizes that the jacket Malia is wearing used to belong to Edgar. 

Grey flicks his gaze back to Curtis, who has looked away but is keeping his mouth set in a hard line, his eyebrows furrowed. Grey sends a glance in Gilliam’s direction, who clearly sees it as well, and wonders what Curtis would have them do. Waste the jacket? Edgar doesn’t need it anymore. Some of Grey’s best thing came from the bodies of the dead.

He shakes his head, letting his gaze drift back over to where Yona is still sitting on the floor and finds her facing his direction and scowling, arms crossed over her chest. He scowls back, only then realizing that she’s imitating him. Something must show on his face because Gilliam laughs, giving Grey a nudge with his umbrella handle. 

“She has you down to a ‘T’ my friend,” he says, still smiling and waves to Yona. Grey rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, and Gilliam laughs again, causing Curtis to finally take notice of his surroundings. 

“What?” he asks, frowning. The lines around his face are showing, as are the deep circles under his eyes. He looks terrible. 

“Oh nothing my boy.” Gilliam reaches out to clasp Curtis’ shoulder. “Come now, lets plan. Grey, if you would make the rounds?” 

Grey nods, pleased at having gotten a useful assignment, and strides away to check the prisoners first. He passes Yona on the way, still sitting in more or less the same place, watching her father tinker with some kind of metal box he must have pulled out of the train. She has the vacant expression Grey now associates with the kronole, her eyes shiny but unfocused. He shakes his head. At least she isn’t shaking or in pain anymore, like she had been when it started to wear off yesterday. 

Now isn’t the time, but when they take the front he’ll encourage her to stop taking it. She won’t want to, but the front sectioners probably have resources to deal with the withdrawal up there. Grey can help her, they can be there for each other all the time when they reach the front. He smiles to himself, privately. The notion of having two people to care for curls like warmth up his spine. He’ll have both Gilliam and Yona. It almost feels selfish, having two. 

The prisoners are still secure, chained to the metal grates. Minister Mason is trying and failing to straighten her blood stained uniform with shaking hands, muttering to herself. She’ll be taken to the front as a guide. Grey meets her eyes briefly for the satisfaction of watching her flinch away. Then he puts her out of his thoughts. They have a few other prisoners, but Grey only has eyes for one. 

Franco is sitting with his legs stretched out, looking far too comfortable for someone in his position. He looks up when Grey approaches but seems to look right through him, completely uninterested. Grey briefly considers kicking him out of spite but thinks better of it. The man doesn’t talk, which is unusual in Grey’s experience. Most people feel the need to make up for Grey’s silence with their own words, but not this man. His goals superceed other people, he doesn’t even try to exist in front of Grey. 

Grey doesn’t try to communicate with him, there’s no point. He is single-mindedly focused on Yona, Grey can feel it like a touch to his own mind. Like something he knows from a dream. Yona won’t die by his hand though, she has people to look out for her. 

Still seeing the look in Franco’s eyes, Grey’s resolve only grows stronger. Yona should stay behind with Grey and Gilliam. Surely her safety is her father’s main concern, he’s done everything in his power to protect her so far. 

Newly motivated, Grey finishes his rounds quickly, setting everything in order. The people do what he shows them, moving efficiently and with purpose. Clearly their new freedom serves as a powerful motivation. Even the tail section looks better organized and brighter somehow, though had thought that it would be worse. Grey expected looting and callous destruction by the people they left behind, instead they seem to have banded together. 

Despite his best efforts to be quick, the plans advance without him in the water supply section. They have to move quickly, press their advantage. Grey comes back to find the group already gathered by the door, including Yona. 

For a moment, he feels like the world is shrinking, narrowing down and crushing him under its weight. There’s nothing he can do, so he moves to Gilliam’s side, crouching down next to his chair. It’s his place. Where he belongs. Yona is watching him, and for a moment he hates her for looking so carefree while Grey feels so sick. They’re having their picture taken down, and she’s smiling for it. He’s so focused on convincing himself that she’ll be fine, her father will look out for her, that he almost misses what Gilliam says to him. 

Grey turns his head, shocked. “You know the front Grey. You’ve seen it.” Gilliam lays his hand on the side of his face. “You must go with Curtis.” For a moment, he doesn’t move, unable to process the instruction. _Leave Gilliam?_ He can’t. 

But Gilliam urges him up, so Grey goes, moving automatically, without thinking. Jandro slides into Grey’s place, setting a hand on the handle of Gilliam’s chair. Grey lets himself be encouraged by the sight in spite of his misgivings. _The tail is safe. Secure._ He reminds himself as he slides in between Yona and Curtis. 

The painter exclaims over his addition to the picture, prompting Namgoong to turn away from his work, glancing over his shoulder. Grey flicks his gaze over to meet his eyes, mouth set in a hard line. Yona’s father gives him a short nod, turning back. 

Grey takes a steadying breath, and feels Yona’s hand slip into his own. He squeezes it hard for a second before letting it go. Across from him, Gilliam gives him a nod, but Grey does not feel comforted as he should. He feels divided. Having two means he can be split down the center. _This is the price,_ Grey realizes. 

“Yona,” Curtis says, leaning into Grey’s space to speak to her and ignoring the Painter’s squawk of outrage. “Is it safe beyond the door?” 

She hums and turns to look at the door. “Be still please!” The Painter calls out, sounding increasingly harried. Curtis waves him down. 

Yona tilts her head to the side. “There are people, but it’s ok,” she says, turning back to smile at the Painter again. Curtis nods, accepting her assessment without question. Grey watches the exchange with a dull curiosity, wondering if Yona has more than one gift. 

“Ok,” her father calls out, and they all turn in time to see the doors open. Grey thought that he was sure that he knows what lies beyond, he’s seen it in his dreams, but it’s somehow still a surprise to see the reality of the garden car present itself. Beside him, he hears Yona make a small, pleased sound and looks down at her. She’s looking back up at him, smiling. 

“It’s pretty, right?” Grey nods, and casts one last look at Gilliam before following her through the door. Gilliam raises a hand, not waving goodbye but sending him off. Something about the gesture emboldens Grey, and he finally allows himself to believe that he will be just fine without him. 

Yona has run up ahead, gazing around at the plants and talking excitedly with her father, who takes it all in stride. Grey shakes his head, looking around the room for himself. It is beautiful, just like he saw it in his dreams. The only difference is that the front sectioners in the car seem incredibly fearful and disgusted by his presence, but in his dreams other people never seemed to notice anything was different about him at all. No one except for Yona. 

Minister Mason is chattering on about the car and the different types of plants, stopping only when Curtis yanks on her shackles. She’s limping, a continual reminder to Grey of his victory over her. When he was a child, she seemed like an angry god, descending upon them to punish and control. No one could defy her back then, but Grey made her bleed. 

Distracted as he is, he almost doesn’t notice that Yona has darted back to him, taking his hand with a wicked smile. “The next one is my favorite, come on.” Grey glances over and sees her father preoccupied by something outside. 

Bemused, he lets her pull him through the next door into the aquarium room. Yona grins at him, pressing her hand to the glass. “It’s so pretty. I like the ocean more though.” Grey nods, ignoring the pointed look Andrew shoots at them as he passes through. Of course, Yona is incapable of that kind of restraint, and grins at him wickedly. Andrew leaves, casting them one last glance. 

Grey reaches over to flick her forehead, admonishing her. She tries to flick him back but he brushes her hand away every time, much faster than her. It just makes her laugh, and Grey can’t help but feel a little bit lighter for the sound. 

“See. I said it would be ok,” she says, sending him a knowing look. Grey just rolls his eyes, not wanting to admit to anything even though he knows it’s pointless to try to hide things from her. Yona shakes her head indulgently and goes back to retrieve her father, who is still staring out the window. Grey casts him a glance as they go to the next part of the car together. He looks dazed and pensive, almost like he’s dreaming. 

Grey glances over at Yona, who sees him looking and discreetly raises her hand to her nose. _Kronole._ Nodding his understanding, Grey realizes that Yona seems more steady than she did the day before. Neither vague nor in pain. He watches her while they eat, wondering about it. Maybe it balances out after a while. 

The zoo car is next, full of a wide range of animals, some of which Grey had seen before in his dreams and others that were totally new. He pauses at the sight of a huge colorful bird, perched on a thin piece of metal. “Young lady!” Minister Mason yells, trying to pull Yona away from something Grey can’t see. “You must leave the animals in their cages, we cannot-” Curtis yanks on her chained hands, cutting her off. 

“Yona,” her father says, giving her a gentle tug on the arm. “Leave the cat alone.” She does, latching the lock with a sour expression. Grey makes a point of catching her eye so he can raise an eyebrow at her. She responds by sticking her tongue out at him. 

They linger in the zoo car for longer than they probably should. There’s a loud exclamation when Andrew nearly gets one of his few remaining fingers snapped off by a turtle. Eventually, Curtis has to yell at all of them to get them moving again. Grey moves away from the bird cages slowly, not wanting to look away. As they leave, Yona claims a spot next to Grey again, pointing to the cat. “If we get control of the train, I want to make more of those.” 

Grey looks down at her and frowns, stopping her with a firm hand on her shoulder. She glances up at him, clearly put off by his sudden shift in mood. He rotates his arm, pointing to a specific tattoo. **When**.

For a moment, Yona just frowns. Then she rolls her eyes. “Fine. _When_ we get control of the train.” Satisfied, Grey lets go of her, but Yona just steps closer. “You trust me, yes?” 

Grey nods automatically, letting her reach up and touch his face. Yona strokes her fingers over his cheekbone, so lightly it makes Grey shiver. “The dreams are always true. When we get to the front, remember that, ok?” 

She turns to go when the rest of the group calls them, and Grey finds that he can’t do anything else but follow her.


	6. Coda: Yona

Yona’s dreams have all dried up. 

She curls up with Timmy in the cave they found high above the wreckage site, huddled together for warmth, but she sees nothing in her sleep. There’s nothing where there used to be so much to explore. Sometimes she sits and wonders if this is the trade off for escaping the train. Maybe she can’t experience the entire world in two ways at once. 

She wonders, but she doesn’t _know_. Yona no longer has any certainty that she knows anything at all. Her dreams didn’t show her everything. She promised Grey that their dreams were always true, but apparently that was a lie. She never saw Timmy, never knew that Grey was going to die like that. All she saw were glimmers, like light on the water. They gave her enough faith to want to break free, and enough false hope to believe that Grey and her father would be coming with her. 

The night before everything fell apart, Yona dreamed of so many things. She sat outside and watched the train go by, and saw Grey try to fight his way to her. She dreamed that her father blew up a mountain so they could pass. She heard Gilliam talk to Wilford, and she saw him die. 

When she woke up, it was slowly, her awareness gradually returning to her in gentle waves. Yona sat up, stretching her arms above her head and pulling until she heard something pop. Most of the people were already awake, though Grey was still asleep. 

Of course the first thing he did when she woke him up was to check for Gilliam, and Yona felt a stab of anger towards the man for daring to betray him. If she was honest, she didn’t care about most of the other passengers. But to know that Gilliam could lie to Grey when he so clearly loved him, it sent a chill through her. 

Yona sat by the wall like a good girl until Grey and Curtis left Gilliam’s side. Then she approached, making sure to keep her expression nice and calm. Gilliam smiled at her as he lowered himself back into his chair. “Yona my dear, what can I do for you?” 

She considered her options for a silent second before she shrugged and leaned against the wall. “I dreamed of you last night Mr. Gilliam,” she said, keeping her voice low. If he was worried, Gilliam didn’t show it. “I heard you talk to someone.” 

Gilliam regarded her in silence for a few minutes, hand under his chin. His gaze was intense but Yona didn’t feel the need to look away. Finally, he spoke. “I see. What do you plan to do with this information?” 

She allowed herself to relax slightly. “Nothing. This...revolution doesn’t need you. You can’t stop it,” she said, not mentioning anything about escape, or that fact that she didn’t think Gilliam would be around long enough to do anymore harm. 

Gilliam nodded at her. “That is true in a way I never imagined, my dear.” He paused to let another passenger walk by, sending them a dry smile before turning back to Yona. “I imagine that you also do not wish to hurt Grey?” Yona narrowed her eyes at the thinly veiled manipulation. She considered telling him that he was going to die out of spite. 

Instead, Yona just nodded. “I want you to send him with us when we go to the front.” She won’t have Grey back here when Gilliam dies. Grey won’t be here. Yona won’t put him in the position to try to sacrifice himself or to prevent it. 

“I will, I was considering doing so in any case,” Gilliam said, letting his eyes drift shut for a moment. Yona pushed away from the wall, ready to be done talking, but Gilliam reaches out to grasp her hand. “I want you to know...that I never meant to harm anyone.” 

Yona pulled her hand away and walked back to her father without a second glance. 

She had felt good after that confrontation, even when she felt guilty for making Grey walk away from him without knowing that it was for the last time. Even when she watched Grey watch Gilliam die. She felt _right_. Now, freezing and hungry, she just feels stupid for thinking that she could save Grey just by moving him to a different part of the train. 

She curls into her self even tighter, trying to stay warm. It’s freezing in the cave, not the killer cold they had been warned about for so many years, but horrible none the less. Still, they found a little food, and Yona knows that there’s water, actual _liquid_ water at the bottom of the ravine. They’ve only been out for a day, but they’re surviving, and Yona will be damned if her father died for nothing. 

Next to her, Timmy shifts in his sleep. _He’s probably dreaming,_ Yona thinks, trying not to be jealous of a five year old. Timmy hasn’t said a word since Yona met him. Under different circumstances, she might find it funny that she ended up trading one mute companion for another. 

She winces at her own dark thoughts, and at the pain in her body. Every minute had been worse than the one before. The kronole balance was slipping away, leaving her hollowed out and shaking constantly. It would pass, Yona reminds herself of that fact every few seconds, but not soon enough. Grey had wanted her to quit, she could tell. 

“No choice now,” she mutters, breathing into her shaking hands to warm them. It doesn’t work. Yona curls her hands into tight fists, letting her nails dig into her skin to stop the shaking. That doesn’t work either, but whether it’s from the cold or the fear she doesn’t know. Fear is fairly new to her, even when they put her in the prison car she didn’t have any real fear, but out in the cold she’s starting to understand it. 

When the shooting started in the school car her father dragged her down underneath the table, pinning her underneath his weight. She wasn’t scared then, staring at the feet of the people shooting at them instead of their faces. When Grey shot up to throw a knife through the next of the teacher lady, Yona grinned, shooting him a thumbs up when she next caught his eye. He smiled at her then too, but it was short lived. 

Grey’s face when they shot Gilliam was horrible. Yona reached for him instinctively, letting him squeeze her until it hurt. “It’s ok,” she said to him in korean, stroking his hair. “It’s ok.” Yona squeezed him back and thought about being outside with him, keeping him safe. They only had a few minutes to put themselves back together, and Grey seemed to close down, eyeing the television with hatred. 

He took a step back from her, holding her at arms length to look into her eyes. Yona understood. _Franco is coming._ Franco killed Gilliam, Grey would be damned if he killed her too. Yona knew, but she hadn’t thought that it would be something he would die for. 

Grey was shaking then out of fear for being alone, just like Yona is now. 

Timmy makes a low noise, like he sometimes does when he sleeps, and rolls over. Yona reaches out to catch him before he hits the ground. “Careful,” she says as he slowly wakes up. “You almost fell on your face.” He doesn’t respond, not even in one of the ways Grey would. 

Yona purposefully stops thinking about him and get to her feet, leaving Timmy to stand by himself. “Ok. The sun is coming up, we should go now.” She strides towards the mouth of the cave without waiting for him, but checks to make sure he’s following out of the corner of her eye. The bear they saw must still be out there somewhere and Yona really doesn’t think she can take being the last person in the world. 

Timmy is right behind her so she exits the cave, glancing around in the too bright sun. She has to squint to see anything properly, and even then it all looks the same. After a few seconds she had to simply take it on faith that there the polar bear is gone because she can hardly distinguish the hills from the sky. 

“Ok,” she says, more out of the need to fill the silence than anything else. Without the rumble of the train Yona can barely hear herself think. “We need to go back to the wreckage to look for supplies, but be careful, alright? There might be some people still alive.” Maybe that would be a good thing, but Yona has seen enough of people to know that they can’t be sure. Timmy flicks his gaze upwards briefly but doesn’t respond, not that Yona expects him to. 

She straightens her spine, resigning herself to protecting him by whatever means necessary. She had never had to do something like this before. Her father had always protected her. When the shooting started in the school car, and when Franco tried to kill her from across the bridge, he always pulled her to safety first. 

Grey protected her too, immediately pushing her into the sauna box when they got to the steam car. Yona tried to pull him in too, but he pushed her away, holding one finger up to his lips. _Be quiet._ If she had known that was going to be the last time she saw him alive, she would have pulled harder, would have done anything. 

Yona takes a deep breath before setting out for the wreckage. She thought her father and her dream boy were going to be with her now, but she has to protect herself. She’ll do many things, but laying down to die isn’t one of them. They trudge through the snow, heading down towards the dark slash against the landscape that Yona knows is the dead train. There’s no more smoke coming off of it, which means the fires must have gone out at last. Yona only hopes they didn’t burn up all the good supplies. 

When it got hit by all the snow the train broke into pieces, and many of them fell down a long cliff. She squints at the parts of it that survived- more or less. “The very front is all burned,” she says, just to break the silence. “But those were just full of rich people, it’s the middle ones we want.” Hopefully some of those remained intact. The train is too long to see if some of the tail section made it, even at this height. 

They creep along the ridge, moving farther and farther down. The cave sits high above the wreck site, providing a panoramic view of the carnage. Yona keeps an eye out for their bear friend, but really she’s more concerned about the potential for survivors. If they’re out there, they’re probably injured, and her father told her that nothing injured ever goes up. If any people made it, they’ll have stuck close to the relative safety of the train on low ground. Yona bites her lip, trying to keep her footing on the slick stone. 

What if they find someone? What if they don’t find anyone at all? She shivers, wondering which would be worse. The traitorous part of her brain whispers that Grey might still be alive. If she and Timmy survived the bomb and the crash and Franco survived all those injuries...but she buries it, refocusing her priorities. _No more dreams,_ she thinks that’s what her father would say. Another wave of emotion comes over her, stronger than the withdrawal. She grits her teeth against it, pushing everything back. 

Eventually they make it to the train and it occurs to Yona that whatever they find they’ll have to drag back up. “Shit,” she mutters to herself, slipping back into Korean. It’s not like Timmy cares anyway. There doesn’t seem to be any movement in the area, but they go slowly just in case, making their way along the side of the train wreckage. 

The first few cars are completely useless, burned out things. Timmy makes for the first car but Yona hooks a finger on his hood pulls him back, she intends to avoids the first car entirely. Her memories of waking up after the crash are hazy at best, but she doesn’t want to go back and check to see if her father’s body is whole or not. She doesn’t want to see it at all. 

“Come on,” she tells him, and he goes without a fight. They walk down the length of several cars before they come to a reasonable opening. One of the cars had come off the tracks entirely, leaving the doors between them ripped open. Yona holds up her hand, signaling for Timmy to stop, and peeks inside. It was a passenger car, one that probably held the highest of the higher ups judging by the way the corpses were dressed. 

Yona backed away, glancing down at Timmy. “Um- lets find another way in,” she says, wondering if the other cars will be any better. They should probably avoid the party car if at all possible. She tries to think of what they need, something she should have done long before now, and silently curses herself for her slowness. She should have considered all this before. 

“We should…” she trails off, thinking. “We should get a piece of metal to put in front of the cave entrance.” Timmy actually glances up at her this time. “I know,” she says, putting her hands up. Choosing to attribute higher level thinking to this five year old than is probably warranted. “But I think we should do it.” 

Timmy just keeps walking, following the train. They have to make a sharp detour around one of the party cars which had flipped over entirely. The previously shaded windows were all smashed out, and bodies hung out of some of them. Yona quickens her pace, prodding Timmy in the butt with her boot when he slows to stare. “Keep going.” 

The car directly following is relatively intact and open to them, and a quick glance inside reveals what Yona considers to be an acceptable number of bodies. She pokes her head back out. “We’re going in ok?” Timmy went ahead, seeming unfazed. _That’s probably not a good sign,_ Yona thinks to herself, biting her thumbnail absently. Then again, it’s not like she can reasonably hide this from him. 

It’s a passenger car with with self contained little rooms. _Private_ rooms. Yona slides each door open as she goes, though few of the room have anything truly useful, because she’s just so curious. “Maybe we should just stay in here Timmy.” She calls out to him. “There’s already doors, we wouldn’t need to make one.” Even as she says it, Yona knows that’s not what they’ll do. She dreamed them into that cave, and that’s where they have to live. She closes the door on all the pretty, useless stuff and keeps going. 

The next few cars are pretty much the same, though she does actually find a few good things, like her new shiny knife. She straps it to her waist, pleased, and turns around to find Timmy gone. Fear grips her for an awful moment. “Timmy!” She jogs forward, through the door and into the sauna. 

“Oh,” she breathes. The room had clearly taken more of a beating than the previous two, most of the sauna units were tipped over into the walking space making it impossible for them to pass through. Yona only notices this in passing though, dropping down to her knees besides Timmy when he falls. She had forgotten that Tanya was there and that she was dead and that she had been Timmy’s mother. She was so _stupid_.

She tries to comfort him. “I’m so sorry-” 

Timmy cuts her off with one long, sustained wail, leaning forward to press his head to the floor. Yona holds onto his shoulders, but she doesn’t try to move him, pressing her fingers into his flesh, hard. She hopes that they can hold each other together. 

After a few horrible minutes, Timmy seems to lose his energy, slumping closer and closer to the floor. Yona hoists him into her arms, determined to get him out of the room. “We never should have come back here,” she says, struggling not to cry and decidedly not turning around to look through the tipped over stalls for Grey’s body next. “We won’t come back to this place.” 

The walls are closing in, and she hurries to escape them, putting as much distance between them and the train as she can before her legs give out, landing them both in the snow. There’s something wrong with her body, she realizes. The kronole withdrawal, the stress… she’s crying, shaking. The cold is seeping in, and she knows that it’s stealing away her life. For a moment, she lets out all her breath, willing herself to relax. 

Grey had been in action right up until the moment he died. He fought all the way, so did her father. Yona moans into the snow, the sound muffled. 

“Timmy,” she croaks, her voice bad from crying. “We have to go back to the cave.” 

He doesn’t respond, still pressed underneath her. She holds her fingers under his nose to feel his breath. Just asleep then. She wishes she could do the same. The walk back to the cave is longer and even worse than the walk down, the few scraps of food and consolation prizes her only source of dignity left. The cave is still relatively warm and sheltered, and Yona sets Timmy down on their new blanket, wrapping the edges around him tightly. 

“See,” she says, more for her own benefit than for his. “We’re ok.” Something creeps up her spine, and she whirls to face the opening of the cave. There’s nothing, but she knows that there’s _something_. 

“Ok bear,” she mutters, reaching down to pick up the rock she’s been carrying. “We can do this now.” 

Yona forces herself forward, the rock clenched tightly in her hand, edges biting into her skin. Determined not to show fear, she walks out of the cave entrance with her head high, and sees him, crouched down in the snow. 

_Grey._

She can’t speak, frozen in place in fear and hope. He makes a sound of effort, low and pained, and she finds her voice again, horrible hope creeping through her. “Dream boy?” 

His head jerks up, eyes wide and pain evident in his features. _Nothing injured goes up,_ she remembers, her father told her. He must be in so much pain. She drops the rock and runs to his side, sliding in the snow to get to him. 

She presses her face into his shoulder. “Grey, Grey.” 

He presses his lips to her forehead, his hands gripping her so tightly it hurts. His fingers trace patterns she can feel even through her coat. 

Y O N A. 

She doesn’t care if it’s just a dream.


End file.
